


Earl Grey Tea (4th Edition)

by Gothams_Only_Wolf



Series: Tea Lover's Association (4th Edition) [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Asperger Syndrome, Developing Friendships, Gen, Jaeger Academy, Tea, woodcarving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 07:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14785821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gothams_Only_Wolf/pseuds/Gothams_Only_Wolf
Summary: Alaskan ice provides opportunity for a friendship between a pilot hopeful and a veteran member of the PPDC to bloom.Part of the revamped Athene Noctua Verse!





	Earl Grey Tea (4th Edition)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pickleplum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/gifts), [artificiallifecreator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificiallifecreator/gifts).



> Look at me, rewriting when 2014 me swore never to do so! I've grown, much as my Raleigh has, and I thought it high time to show that. 
> 
> A huge thanks to pickleplum and ALC for bringing the PacRim Muses roaring back to life with that Athene revamp and for checking over this latest version of Earl Grey! 
> 
> Enjoy~

* * *

**-Jaeger Academy; Kodiak Island, Alaska, November 23, 2016-**

* * *

The World War II bunker, half sunken into the tundra as it was, was the perfect place for Raleigh to think. Feet dangling over the dusty window, he kicked his feet back and forth as he blanked for a moment. 

Yancy was aware of where he's at, has known about Raleigh's hideaway since before they entered the Academy. 

The Instructors, trained to maximize potential, don't quite know what to do with him. They mark down 'impulsive' or 'corrective' on their charts but Raleigh couldn't ignore the way Cadet Gunter reeked of fake coconut and Ivory soap, the same way he couldn't ignore the stench of a white-board marker and the squeak it made on the tactics board. 

A white board that's nearly always three moves behind—as far as Raleigh's concerned—on a good day. Yancy liked to say that it was a gift; intuition at its finest when Raleigh beat the tacticians at their own little war games. As Sun Tzu advised, "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." 

_**They**_ called it Asperger's Syndrome pre-Breach, pre-Tresspasser, pre-well- _Kaiju_. Maman had known how to calm it, give his butterfly attention the focus it needed to catalogue and coax information into managable pieces. Yancy was the only one who knew aside from Medical and Raleigh already avoided Med Bay for a host of other reasons. 

Mid-leg swing, he heard a yelp and then a tell-tale thud as someone's rear end met the ground. Black ice, common enough for those born and raised here but for those who weren't... It was a bit of a hazard. Raleigh cracked open an eye and then jumped down and hustled over to help. 

The stick of a figure's managed to push to sitting by the time Raleigh arrived. 

"Hey, you alright? That, uh, that sounded pretty bad." He held out his gloved hand, waiting for them to reach up. He was trying to keep in mind the recently implemented policy, the one about not assuming things about people. 

"No, thank you. I will be fine in a moment." The word was clipped English, the lilt causing Raleigh to cock his head to the side. 

"Cool. Mind if I hang around a moment?" he prodded genially. 

"Do whatever you please." 

Raleigh gave them their space, using the time to dig around in his pockets; he came up with his wood knife and found half a block of cherry tucked into his jacket pocket. Hell yeah, Yan was officially the best brother ever. 

The downed person watched Raleigh with wary, brown eyes.

Raleigh risked his warmest, least threatening smile, offered, "Name's Cadet Raleigh Becket, he-him-his." 

"Doctor Hermann Gottlieb, also he-him-his."

"Great to meet you, Doctor."

A teensy bit of tension bled from Gottlieb's skinny shoulders, but he still grumbled, "Why would—why are you concerned for me?" 

"You're new, yeah? No snow cleats and your winter gear's limited. There's chalk dust on your sleeve but we only got blackboards last week. Rumors put you as maths, maybe coding? Probably Jaeger coding. Lightcap's been chatting for months about needing more help in J-Tech an' stopped complain' last week. 'Laskan weather's a bitch if you're not used to it. Call it common courtesy, one Academy person to another." Raleigh answered as he carved off slivers of cherry to mark out a relief in the wood, the tip of his tongue poking out as he went with the grain. 

Lucky Seven, maybe, or Tacit Ronin facing Reckoner? Cherno Alpha against Gurganta? 

"You … you're right about my assignment here. How did you come up with all of that?" 

The confusion that reigned had Raleigh huffing softly. "I pay attention. I watch an' listen t' everything and I put it together in my head." he shrugged and tucked his nose into the scoop of Yancy's cable-knit sweater. "My brother says it's intuition."

"... I see." The hesitant reply was pretty much what Raleigh expected from someone he'd only just met. 

Raleigh snorted, snarked, "Do you?" 

"More than most would think," the cryptic response, tinged with the driest English drawl he'd heard in years, made him turn to face them. 

"My Maman said that tea cures most ills." Raleigh said, scrubbing at the back of his neck out of habit. "I... don't suppose you play chess?" 

"I'm afraid I don't follow." Gottlieb stretched and grabbed a brass-handled cane at the very edge of his reach. 

"I'm asking you to drink tea with me in my quarters and play some chess while the soreness eases. That was a hell of a fall," 

Gottlieb's sharp gaze raked over him as though trying to figure out his motive. 

Raleigh tucked away his knife and wood to raise both hands in surrender. "Just tea n' chess, I promise. I got a lot to think on and both help."

"I suppose one game could not _possibly_ ruin anything." The concession, when it came, was equal parts reluctant and resigned. 

"Great! Here." Raleigh tugged the lanky man up, noticing that he basically towered over the guy. Then again, at 6'1", Raleigh towered over a _lot_ of people, his own brother included. 

At the suspicious crunch from Gottlieb's knee-level, Raleigh gently took the man's left arm to steer him toward the Cadet dorms, adding his strength to the support from the man's cane. They made it to Raleigh's door without trouble, but Gottlieb had his teeth clenched after the first few feet. 

"How do you take your tea?" he asked as they stepped into the main room. Yancy's not in at the moment but he'd left a note for Raleigh, like always, written in Czech on the fridge. 

"With lemon if you have it." came the response as he settled the doctor in the comfy chair. "I am not displacing you?"

"Nah. _This_ is my chair." He patted the green monstrosity as he passed it. Raleigh knew his chair would swallow the man and had placed him in Yan's slightly firmer chair accordingly. "That's Yan's baby right there. He's big on being cushy." He said as he put water into a pot and pulled down his tea collection. "Any particular blend?"

"Earl Grey, if you have it." 

"That I've got." Raleigh took two tea-bags full of Earl Grey out of their pristine packaging and set them into the thick blue mugs. He lit up the mini-stove to boil the water as he dug around in his half of the room for the chess set.

Gottlieb sat silent, watching through half-closed eyes.

It's no surprise the Doctor's tight-lipped, Raleigh told himself. He had moods like that, too, and they were, technically, strangers. Eventually Raleigh decided on keeping the man's first name, even if it was only in the privacy of his own head.

"'S a bit battered but it works." he murmured with a fond smile at the wooden box his Maman had gifted him with years ago. "Passed down for eight generations or something."

Hermann hummed approval.

Raleigh set out the board and pieces while the Doc eyed the white set. When he finished, he turned the board to give Gottlieb access to the white pieces. Confusion flickered across Hermann's face, followed by an equally brief tap against his chest, before he settled deeper in his chair with a shadow of smile.

He poured the water over the bags, setting down a chipped blue mini-plate of vanilla wafers along with the saucers for the mugs. Cutting the wedge of lemon was done quickly as he poured cream into a tiny pitcher while scooping up the sugar cubes into a bowl. He popped one in his mouth as the tea brewed, enjoying the quiet. 

Hermann smiled faintly as Raleigh set out the tea and said, "You know an English tea quite well. If I may ask how?" 

"My family traveled around a lot when I was a kid. It was … educational," he answered as he tucked his left foot under his right leg, then snagged the tea bags and squeezed them out carefully with a fork. "You too, yeah? I'd say you're not from the US, not with that accent of yours." 

Hermann shook his head. "I'm not. I learned the accent at school in England, though I was born elsewhere." He took his rook's pawn and moved it forward two spaces. 

Raleigh nibbled on a wafer as his mind reviewed his last neural fitness test, nearly three weeks prior. He cataloged the feel of the air, the way the instructor's elbow was wet from dipping it in the chow hall oatmeal, and even the way his breath fogged like a dragon's. He moved his knight's pawn forward. 

They went back and forth for a while, taking pawns and even the occasional knight. When Raleigh set up the castling maneuver, Hermann countered with a different strategy.

They turned ruthless as Raleigh made them a second tea and refilled the wafer plate (he knew Hermann was eating them while he zoned out to catalogue the day before simulations). By the time Raleigh had Hermann pinned in check, the man managed to pull off a tricky maneuver that left him crushed.

"Checkmate," declared Hermann with a smug note of triumph.

Raleigh grinned with a good-natured shrug at being defeated. "I haven't had a match like that in _ages_. How'd you do it?" 

"You may have been planning twelve steps ahead, but I sussed your strategy a third of the way in when you sacrificed your bishop for your king."

"Huh. You got me and the only way to fix that is to challenge you to a rematch." He leaned forward, eager. "I know you're probably gonna be pretty busy soon but if you need a … break or some quiet, I'm usually on the ledge by where I found you or in the Jaeger hangars. If not either of those places, probably with Yan."

"Yan?"

"Oh, right. My brother, Yancy. Sorry. I get ahead of myself sometimes. It's all organized up here but comes out like shit occasionally." Raleigh tapped his temple to indicate his mind. "More tea?"

"Please."

"No problem." Raleigh fixed them each another cup.

"What were you doing when I made my moves?" 

Raleigh bit his lip to buy some time. 

"You don't have to tell me," said Hermann, voice kind.

"Nah, it's good. It's... I have Asperger's Syndrome, AS for short. It means that I think in a different pattern than everybody else and a lot faster. I get distracted easily 'cause I'll focus on something that's not important. Yan's my anchor. I keep most of it at bay with practice, the ledge or sims. That bother you?" Raleigh asked as he glanced at his guest from the corner of his eye.

"Hardly. It was an interesting chess game. I may... take you up on your offer some time in the future." Hermann replied, his gaze level and free of pity. 

"Sure." he easily agreed as he handed over the tea. "I know it's not easy to make friends in a new place."

Hermann eyed him with outright suspicion. "Friends?" 

"If you think that's okay." Raleigh won't push but he liked the guy well enough. "No pressure."

"You are incredibly confident that I will accept your overtures."

"Of friendship, yeah." He said with a soft huff of laughter. 

Hermann studied him as if still searching for a motive.

Raleigh tried his puppy-dog eyes, the ones Maman used to say made him look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, but they had little effect. 

His cell buzzed and Yancy's number popped up, excited gibberish in all caps that Raleigh proceeded to ignore. Whatever event his brother was at wouldn't be worth the headache if he called; he knew _that_ from experience. 

"One sec." He typed back something to the degree of 'You know I don't answer when you're out like that.' "That's Yan being an idiot. You have siblings?"

"Three." Ah-ha, the real reason Hermann hadn't caved at the puppy-eyes! 

"That's one more than I got."

Hermann shifted in his chair, the faint grimace testament to the sore spot Raleigh knew he had, "As pleasant as this has been, I think I need to be about my work."

"Alright." He got up, cussed lightly at his foot that fell asleep and picked up Hermann's cane where it rested against Yan's chair. It's fairly brittle for one, especially a wooden cane. "Thanks for, uh, indulging my invite." 

"It was a good choice," Hermann responded as he accepted the cane. "Thank you and good day, Cadet Becket." 

Raleigh sketched what might have been a wave, his hand half rising with a quick fall. "'Bye, Doctor." 

Hermann snapped out a nod and limped from the room and down the hallway, planting his cane with a decisive thump at each step.

Raleigh leaned against the doorframe, his thoughts turning inward as he watched Hermann disappear around the corner. When an old woodwork project popped up he almost dismissed it out of hand—save for the fact that it was a cane design. 

It'd be put to good use if he made it now. It won't be ready for a long time, though, not with the care needed to carve a sturdy support. The project just gave him the excuse he needed to invite Hermann over again. He'd like to get to know the quiet man better in the future. 

He smiled at the thought of lost chess matches and tea drunk, his hands already itching for his battered sketchbook and a pencil.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, complain, ect.


End file.
